FREDRIC JAMESON'S ARCHITECTURE YET TO COME
Examining the Lexical Proposition in ‘Spatial Equivalents in the World System’ and Other Essays2020, Academic, UCL, 4500 words
In Fredric Jameson’s essay Spatial Equivalents in the World System (1991), the cultural critic outlines a brief yet powerful methodology for reimagining a postmodern architecture through language and literary analogies. ‘An architecture that performs a rewriting program’ as a matter of ‘awakening the conditions of possibility of this or that spatial form.’ He also proposes a rather loose and general scheme in which minimal units in both language and architecture can be investigated.
This essay examines Jameson’s lexical proposition in regards to the production of Utopian space in architecture. In order to do so, it is divided into 3 parts. In Part One, it introduces this proposition in relation to Robin Evans’ historical account to which Jameson refers. In Part Two, it situates the discussion within Jameson’s work and thoughts on Utopia, and his central concepts on its cultural production. In Part Three, It offers a synthesis, contending that Jameson’s lexical proposition, though powerful and enduring over many years, remains but a sketch and a thought process that is yet to be developed. It will then conclude with a postscript attempt to extend this lexical proposition a step further.
This essay was supervised and reviewed by Robin Wilson, UCL.